Discharge

Reversing an earlier decision, the Air Force said Monday that it intends to discharge a lesbian Air Force officer who had remained in the military despite openly declaring her homosexuality. An Air Force general this year concluded that Lt. Robin R. Chaurasiya should not be discharged, saying she had declared her sexual orientation for the purpose of avoiding military service. But after Chaurasiya spoke publicly about that decision, the Air Force announced a further review.

His mother said a quiet prayer of thanks. His father dropped his head and rubbed his eyes. Four years after Los Angeles High School football star Jamiel Shaw II's death, the gang member accused of gunning him down because he was carrying a red Spider-Man backpack was convicted Wednesday of first-degree murder. Jurors deliberated for barely half a day before returning the guilty verdict against Pedro Espinoza, now 23. The panel found to be true allegations that Espinoza committed the crime in association with a gang and that he personally discharged a firearm.

The operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant began releasing thousands of tons of radioactive water into the sea Monday evening under an emergency measure approved by the government to make room in storage tanks for far more severely contaminated water. About 10,000 tons of the water to be released was being taken from a communal storage facility near the No. 4 reactor. Another 1,500 tons was being released from near the No. 5 and 6 reactors — which have faced fewer problems than the other reactors.

An environmental crusader known as "Mr. Malibu" has apologized to Pepperdine University and retracted accusations that the school is to blame for effluent flowing down Marie Canyon Creek and into the Pacific Ocean. In exchange, the university has agreed to drop a lawsuit against activist Cary ONeal that alleged libel and "invasion of privacy by placing person in a false light in public eye. " In two videos he posted online, ONeal claimed that a foamy substance pooling on a Malibu beach was sewage released by Pepperdine.

Army 1st Lt. Ehren Watada will be discharged by the end of the week, concluding the fight over his refusal to deploy to Iraq, an Army spokesman said Monday. After a court-martial proceeding that ended in a mistrial, the Army has elected not to attempt further prosecution and instead will discharge the first lieutenant, who argued he would be participating in war crimes if he fought in Iraq. "What was approved was basically his request to resign in lieu of a general court-martial for the good of the service," said spokesman Joseph Piek at Ft. Lewis, Wash.

Sewage treatment plants and industry are discharging toxic pollutants into Los Angeles County waters with impunity, a regional environmental group contends in a new study. In a report released today, Heal the Bay faults state and regional water quality regulators, saying that they have been lax in enforcing and adopting strong discharge standards for toxicity. "Polluters are discharging toxic effluent with no risk of enforcement and not even an obligation to find out and abate what is causing that toxicity -- that is a major water quality concern," said Mark Gold, the organization's president.

SAN DIEGO - A Marine sergeant who criticized President Obama on Facebook was notified Wednesday that he is being dismissed from the service with an other-than-honorable discharge. Gary Stein, 26, a nine-year veteran who served in Iraq, will be demoted to lance corporal, and his discharge status will make him ineligible for most federal veterans benefits, after Brig. Gen. Daniel Yoo accepted the unanimous recommendation of an Administrative Separation Board. The panel found that he made disparaging comments about Obama that were detrimental to good order and discipline and violated military law. Civilian lawyers for Stein said they would continue to fight in federal court to prevent Stein from being dismissed or to win his reinstatement.

Newborns discharged from the hospital within a day of delivery were slightly more likely to return for treatment within the first weeks of life than those allowed to stay longer, according to a report in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association. Researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle said their findings argued against cost-cutting efforts by hospitals and insurers to discharge mothers and their infants quickly.

A 37-year-old woman who deserted from the Army in 1999 has been given an administrative discharge, officials said Saturday. Giselle Flynn, a local bus driver, was arrested Feb. 14 on a desertion warrant and jailed for several days before being sent to Ft. Sill, Okla. Her attorney, Jeremiah Sullivan, said Army officials agreed to expedite the paperwork so she could return to her family. Flynn came home in 1999 to be with a sick child. After going AWOL, she tried twice to turn herself in to Navy officials in San Diego but was rebuffed.

A National Guard member charged with desertion while fighting for custody of her 7-year-old daughter has been granted an honorable discharge from the Army, her lawyer said Saturday. New Hampshire Army National Guard Spc. Lisa Hayes learned of the discharge Friday at Fort Dix, N.J., where she had surrendered earlier in the week. She and her daughter, Brystal, returned home to Rindge, N.H., early Saturday, said her lawyer, Linda Theroux.

Some of the nation's top aviators are refusing to fly the radar-evading F-22 Raptor, a fighter jet with ongoing problems with the oxygen systems that have plagued the fleet for four years. At the risk of significant reprimand - or even discharge from the Air Force - fighter pilots are turning down the opportunity to climb into the cockpit of the F-22, the world's most expensive fighter jet. The Air Force did not reveal how many of its 200 F-22 pilots, who are stationed at seven military bases across the country, declined their assignment orders.

Orders are orders Re "Marine who criticized Obama to be discharged," April 26 When I entered basic training, my drill instructor opened the proceedings with the ever-famous words, "Your soul may belong to God, but your [expletive] belongs to me!" I was quickly taught that officers were to be saluted and that orders were to be obeyed. We knew that by taking our oath, we had given up certain rights, including my right to tell my sergeant where I thought his order should be deposited, much less an order from the commander in chief.

SAN DIEGO - A Marine sergeant who criticized President Obama on Facebook was notified Wednesday that he is being dismissed from the service with an other-than-honorable discharge. Gary Stein, 26, a nine-year veteran who served in Iraq, will be demoted to lance corporal, and his discharge status will make him ineligible for most federal veterans benefits, after Brig. Gen. Daniel Yoo accepted the unanimous recommendation of an Administrative Separation Board. The panel found that he made disparaging comments about Obama that were detrimental to good order and discipline and violated military law. Civilian lawyers for Stein said they would continue to fight in federal court to prevent Stein from being dismissed or to win his reinstatement.

I'm pretty close to being a 1st Amendment absolutist, but I can't get too upset about the dismissal from the U.S. Marines of Gary Stein. He's the sergeant who is being given an "other-than-honorable" discharge for Facebook postings in which he called President Obama a coward and an enemy, vowed not to salute him, declared he wouldn't follow presidential orders he considered illegal, and urged the president's electoral defeat. The American Civil Liberties Union is defending Stein.

The bid to bring a large-scale desalination plant to Southern California cleared a major hurdle Friday when water regulators approved a permit for a Huntington Beach facility to turn seawater into drinking water. Connecticut-based firm Poseidon Resources is proposing a seawater desalination plant on a 12-acre site next to a coastal power plant, which is adjacent to a popular state beach. According to the company, it would be the largest such facility in the Western Hemisphere.

Thick, tarry fuel oil disgorged into San Francisco Bay from a damaged cargo ship in 2007 was surprisingly toxic to fish embryos, devastating the herring population that feeds seabirds, whales and the bay's last commercial fishery, scientists reported Monday. Although the bay's herring spawning grounds are now free of toxic oil, studies have found that the moderate-size spill of 54,000 gallons had an unexpectedly large and lethal effect. The culprit, a common type of ship fuel called "bunker fuel," appears to be especially toxic to fish embryos, particularly when exposed to sunlight, according to a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A military police officer was discharged partly because of a head injury he suffered while posing as an uncooperative detainee during a training exercise at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Army acknowledged Tuesday. The Army previously had said Spc. Sean Baker's medical discharge in April was unrelated to the injury he received last year at the detention center, where the U.S. government holds suspected terrorists. Maj. Laurie Arellano, a spokeswoman for the U.S.

In 1960 Republican Southern Baptists questioned whether a Democratic Catholic's religious views were compatible with the discharge of presidential responsibilities. Considering recent expressions by Republican Southern Baptists, one wonders whether their religious views are compatible with the discharge of those responsibilities. GEORGE C. SHAHINIAN Los Alamitos

Reporting from San Diego -- A Navy linguist discharged under the now-repealed policy banning gays from serving openly has been reinstated and will report soon to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, his attorneys announced. Petty Officer 2nd Class Jase Daniels, 29, was discharged in 2007 after he was featured in a story in the Stars & Stripes newspaper about gay military personnel. He was sworn back into the Navy on Monday. Daniels, a Hebrew linguist, served a year in Kuwait before being discharged.

Three Marine corporals have been given bad-conduct discharges after pleading guilty to sham marriages meant to allow a lesbian couple to receive housing allowances, the Marine Corps said Monday. The Marines — two men and a woman — were assigned to the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing and based at Camp Pendleton. The fourth person in the sham marriages is a civilian and thus untouchable by military law, officials said. Cpl. Ashley Vice and her partner, civilian Jaime Murphy, said they needed the housing allowances so they could afford to live together in an off-base apartment "like a normal couple.